Cancer research

2015/11/24

Ceit-IK4 PhD student Oihane Mitxelena is winner of SEIB award for best research in bioengineering.

The Spanish Society for Biomedical Engineering (SEIB) gave Oihane Mitxelena the 2015 award for best research paper at the 33rd Annual Bioengineering Conference, which took place in Madrid on 4-6 November.

Mitxelena’s study, which she carried out in collaboration with the Faculty of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology and with the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, is part of a larger research project being carried out by the Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBIO). It is also part of her doctoral thesis, which is being supervised by Dr. Sergio Arana and Dr. Maite Mujika.

Mitxelena’s study, “Simulation and development of a microfluidic platform for dynamic cellular studies in vitro”“Simulation and development of a microfluidic platform for the study of cellular dynamics in vitro”, is focused on developing a microfluidic platform for in vitro testing in order to demonstrate the efficacy of nanomedicines in the treatment of childhood osteosarcoma. This work also received an award from the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) in 2014.

Mitxelena (1991), who received her MS in Biomedical Engineering at TECNUN and is now conducting her doctoral research as a member of the BioMEMS group in the Microelectronics and Microsystems Area at the Ceit-IK4 Technology Center, received the highest score from the Conference’s Scientific Committee, who evaluate Master’s and PhD students for the quality of their research and their oral presentations.

The young researcher from Gipuzkoa was lauded in February of this year by University College London, where she was finalizing her Master’s studies, when she was awarded the prize for best Final Project for her research on the development of microbubbles that are able to transport medicines to areas that are affected by tumours.